Managed Service Provider in New Zealand, for Teams of 20 to 200
A managed service provider runs your IT for a fixed monthly fee instead of billing you by the hour. Ours starts at $750 a month, and a full outage carries a 15 minute response target that we publish. This page covers what that buys, what it does not, and the four questions that separate a managed service provider from a help desk with a subscription.
What a managed service provider actually does
The label covers a wide range of service, so it is worth being specific. A managed IT service provider is responsible for the state of your systems, not just for answering the phone when something breaks. In practice that means five things.
- A help desk your staff can reach. Someone picks up, understands the problem and tells you what happens next.
- Patching and updates. Applied on a schedule, not when someone remembers.
- Backup that has been restored from. A backup nobody has ever tested is not a backup.
- Security monitoring. Continuous monitoring of your endpoints and identities, with someone who acts on an alert.
- Planning. A view of what needs replacing, what needs budgeting and what risk you are carrying.
If a provider does the first item and calls itself a managed service provider, you are buying a help desk. That is a legitimate thing to buy. It is just not the same thing, and it should not cost the same.
What a managed security service provider adds
A managed security service provider, or MSSP, is a narrower thing. It concentrates on detection and response: watching for compromise, investigating alerts and containing an incident. Some MSSPs do nothing else, and sit alongside whoever runs your day to day IT.
We run both together, because splitting them creates a gap. The team that patches your servers and the team that watches for intrusion need to be looking at the same estate. Where that is separated, the common failure is not a missed alert, it is an alert nobody owned.
If your security sits with one provider and your day to day IT sits with another, that is the arrangement to look at first. You can read what sits inside that work on our IT security services page.
What we publish that most providers do not
Almost no managed service provider in New Zealand publishes its response times. We do, because a target you cannot see is not a commitment.
| Priority | What it means | Response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Full outage, nobody can work | 15 minutes | 2 hours |
| P2 | Major issue, a team is blocked | 25 minutes | 4 hours |
| P3 | Single user affected | 30 minutes | 6 hours |
| Service request | New starter, new device, a change | 1 hour | 5 business days |
Response means an engineer has picked up your ticket, understood what is broken and told you what happens next. It is not an automated email confirming receipt. The full detail sits on our response times page.
Ask any provider you are talking to for the same four rows in writing, and see what comes back.
What we are not
Our support line is staffed 8.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday, excluding New Zealand public holidays. After-hours cover is a paid add-on from $600 a month for a team of up to ten, and the team covering it is in the United Kingdom. There is a genuine uncovered gap between the end of the New Zealand day and the start of the United Kingdom one, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Monitoring runs continuously and will raise an alert at any hour. A person answering your call will not. Any provider telling you it has New Zealand staff awake at 3.00am for a company your size is either lying to you or burning out its people.
What a managed service provider costs
We price by team size, in bands, rather than per user. The band price is the price, with no per-person charge on top and no headcount reconciliation at the end of the month. For a team of up to ten, Remote IT Support is $750 a month and Managed IT Support is $1,200. NZD excluding GST, priced at 6 August 2026.
Onsite attendance is not included on Remote IT Support, it is $180 an hour with a half hour minimum, plus travel. From Managed IT Support up it is included at one hour per ten users per month. Unused hours bank for six months and can be spent on project work, and anything past that balance is quoted at $180 an hour.
A team smaller than ten is priced as ten, and we are usually not the right answer below that size. Every published figure sits on our pricing page, including the security audit and vCIO rates.
A test you can apply to any provider, including us
Ask any managed service provider you are considering for these four things in writing. Ask us for them too.
- Your response and resolution targets by priority, as numbers.
- The date of the last successful restore from backup, for a client of my size.
- What happens at 9.00pm on a Saturday, and who is awake.
- What it costs to leave, and how much notice is required.
The fourth one is the most revealing, so here is our answer to it. The term is 36 months, with a fee-free break at nine months on 90 days notice, which means your real maximum commitment is twelve months rather than thirty-six. Inside the first 90 days you can leave and have your money back, with no reason required, and that covers onboarding.
Most providers make leaving expensive, because a client who cannot leave does not have to be kept happy. We would rather earn month ten than enforce it.
Rated 4.8 from 44 Google reviews. The first and only New Zealand IT provider certified to both ISO 27001 and ISO 42001, as at May 2026. 98% client retention rate (Canterbury clients, 2022 to 2025). You have 90 days to change your mind. If you are not happy in the first 90 days, for any reason you like, you get your money back.
Fifteen minutes with Tim. The 45 minute discovery call and the scoping work that follow it are also free. Charging starts only if you commit.
Not ready to talk yet
Most people reading this are comparing options rather than buying today. If that is you, compare the three ways of running IT before you speak to anyone.
Common questions
What is the difference between a managed service provider and an MSP?
There is none. MSP is the abbreviation of managed service provider and the two are used interchangeably. A managed security service provider, or MSSP, is a different thing: it focuses on security detection and response rather than running your IT day to day.
What size company needs a managed service provider?
We are built for teams of 20 to 200 staff. Below ten people the fixed monthly model rarely pays for itself, and we will tell you so. Above 200, you are usually better served by an internal team with a co-managed arrangement alongside it.
How much does a managed service provider cost in New Zealand?
Ours starts at $750 a month for Remote IT Support and $1,200 for Managed IT Support, both for a team of up to ten. NZD excluding GST, priced by team size rather than per user, as at 6 August 2026. Every band is published on our pricing page. Providers who will not quote before a discovery call are usually pricing you, not the work.
Can a managed service provider replace our internal IT person?
It can, but it is often the wrong move. Where you already have someone capable, a co-managed arrangement keeps them and adds the overnight monitoring, the tooling and the escalation path they cannot provide alone. See the three service models for the comparison.
What happens if we are not happy?
You can leave inside the first 90 days and get your money back, with no reason required. That covers onboarding. It does not cover hardware or third party licences we have bought on your behalf. After that, the 36 month term carries a fee-free break at nine months on 90 days notice.